My Regret
by kandys-couple
Summary: Set in S3 after the hospital benefit. Sandy doesn't realize what he's got until...


**Hello, fellow fanfictioners. This is another short story from us, even though; we haven't quite finished any of our other fics yet. We were just so inspired by the episode that we had to write something about it. And here it finally is: D It's set in Season 3, right after Kirsten walks out at the benefit and takes her first drink. All credits to the song go to the Honorary Title, whose music we will continue to love. This is a three parter, three-shot. : P It's a lot of Kandy angst with some smut (next shot) in between. We hope you like it. Read and Review and enjoy. :)**

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters. Not affiliated with Fox or the O.C. Song doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the Honorary Title.

Plot: Kirsten tries to tell Sandy how she feels only to be ignored repeatedly. She's had enough. He just doesn't get it until…

Song: Revealing Too Much – The Honorary Title

First Shot: Revealing Too Much

**Accentuated by the mobile dungeon of fluorescence**

**Eyes are falling out of love**

**This wasn't supposed to happen**

**Not according to you**

Kirsten Cohen guiltily looked at the empty glass in her hand. She had done it. Broken 11 months of being sober in one night. She heard a rustle from behind her. She knew he was coming. She thought quickly and threw the glass into a bush as she heard him call out her name, "Kirsten!"

She spun around as she heard him rush to her. Sandy Cohen was finally going to talk to her. "What is it, Sandy?"

"What the hell was that?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" said Kirsten, casually. A part of her meant it. A very small part. She stared at him, his deep eyes dulled.

"No, that's not okay. You don't mean it. I can hear it in your voice. Kirsten, I am nothing like Caleb," defended Sandy, walking toward her and taking her hands in his.

**Please don't allow your voice to fade**

**Don't fall so weak to fall to blame**

**To give yourself reason for an end**

"Oh, but you are and you don't even realize it. You're exactly the way he was when I was growing up. I'm in my mother's marriage, Sandy. The kind of life I wanted to escape from. The life you promised me I would never have to experience," said Kirsten, loudly, pulling her hands from his. She searched his eyes, looking for a remnant of the man she loved. She saw nothing. The soul looking out at her was trapped, trapped in a power driven, ignorant man, whose priorities and ethics had been thrown out the window.

"That's not true! I gave you everything you ever wanted," he defended once more, not realizing his striking similarity to the father in law he had resented. His voice was slightly raised, defensive as if trying to prove to himself that what he was saying was true. He caught his reflection in her sorrowed eyes briefly. His face had grown more worried, wrinkles beginning to etch into his skin, dull lifeless eyes. He shook his head as he stepped closer to his wife. He was right. He wasn't like Caleb. He was his own man. He was Sandy Cohen, father and husband extraordinaire. Not some old tyrant like figure. _I am nothing like Caleb Nichol. _

Kirsten shook her head slowly as she backed from him, "Huh, funny. That's what he said that day he visited me when I came home from the hospital." Their likeness was uncanny, almost frightening.

"Kirsten…" began Sandy, noticing her move away from him. Her hands were up as if pushing him away, her head shaking from side to side, and her eyes saddened.

**Please don't allow your voice to fade**

**Don't fall so weak to fall to blame**

**To give yourself reason for an end**

"Sandy, don't." Her voice was firm, commanding. She didn't want to do this in public. What had happened at the benefit was a mistake. Her emotions had taken over and what she had said was a result of that. She had never intended to inform the medical community of her marriage's faults and destructions. She had now brought it into the open, the problems between them. Perhaps maybe Sandy would finally realize that she was unhappy in their current situations. Perhaps maybe Sandy would talk to her.

"You know what, Kirsten? I don't need this. Not right now. Not while there are people in there who are expecting me to return with my wife. Let's go," said Sandy, suddenly, reaching for her and grabbing her hand. Kirsten winced slightly. She had been wrong.

"No, Sandy. You can't keep avoiding this talk," said Kirsten, pulled her hand from his. She flashed him an angry look. Her eyes shooting frustrated glances at his clueless ones. The Sandy Cohen she had known was intelligent and always knew what she was thinking. This Sandy Cohen had his eyes set on one thing, the hospital. Kirsten sighed as she realized that she had been replaced by a building. Was it simply because she had somehow grown weak compared to the concrete frame of the facility? Or was it because he needed something that could be fixed, unlike her addiction and her alcoholism?

**We'd have our own subway car in the middle of the night**

**I'd work the same job **

**And play the same bars on every weekend**

**As the graffiti scrolls by**

"I'm not avoiding anything," he said, carefully, noticing her transition from anger to sadness. He approached her slowly, daring to put his arms around her small shaking frame. He was surprised when he managed to get close to her. His arms spreading open to take her in. He enveloped her in a warm embrace as she leant into him. She missed him, the feel of his strong body against hers and the smell of his cologne. She missed her husband. She felt a vibration at her thigh and shook her head. She backed away from him.

"Tell them I don't feel well and that I had to leave," said Kirsten, suddenly frustrated with herself for allowing herself to get hurt yet again for what seemed like the umpteenth time that evening. She watched as he reached into his pants pocket to retrieve his cell phone. He glanced down at the name displayed on the front before smiling. He looked up at Kirsten, barely noticing the distance between them. Physically, she was now a yard away. Emotionally, he missed; she was on the opposite side of the earth. He motioned for her to come closer as to walk into the club together. When she didn't move, he realized that she wasn't going to come any closer.

**Please don't allow your voice to fade**

**Don't fall so weak to fall to blame**

**To give yourself reason for an end**

"You're not coming back in," he stated, sighing deeply and running a hand through his hair.

Kirsten turned around, waving her small hand in the air, "No. I'll see you at home, when you're ready to talk to me. Goodbye Sandy." Sandy watched in amazement, he always did love her walk. He had never seen her walk away like this before. He stared after her for a few moments before he heard Neil's voice calling for him. Sandy shrugged and turned away. They could talk about what was bothering Kirsten later. All they had was time.

Kirsten sighed, grateful at the darkness she had been plunged into as she let loose the many tears that had threatened to fall earlier. She walked toward the beach, craving the solitude and silence to gather her thoughts. As she reached the sanded area, she leant over and removed her shoes, letting them hang from her slender fingers. As she walked along the shoreline, where the water would creep up slowly toward her bare feet before backing away softly, she lifted her head into the ocean's salty breeze.

**Please don't allow your voice to fade**

**Don't fall so weak to fall to blame**

**To give yourself reason for an end**

She stifled a cry with a hand to her mouth as she remembered the relationship she had been in with the man she had been in love with. Sandy used to take her walking along the beach…

He took her hand and stopped her as she turned to face him, eyebrow raised. He smiled as he reached down and took her shoes, dangling from her slender fingers. He cast her heels aside onto the sand before pulling her toward him, wrapping his arms around her trim waist. She reached her arms up to circle his neck, drawing his body nearer to hers. She threw him a knowing glance before chuckling lightly. He shook his head, feigning innocence. He leaned in to kiss her inviting lips only to be greeted by her warm cheek, her head turned.

And at the end of your low 

**You pin my shoulders against the mattress**

**Arching your frame**

She wasn't going to kiss him if he wasn't telling the truth. He watched her as the constructed a plan. Her position had granted him more flesh to see, the curve of her jaw line, the delicacy of her neck, the shape of her ear. He leaned in swiftly, taking the earlobe between his lips. He felt her shudder against him, her knees buckling momentarily. He tugged the lobe with his teeth before grazing her jaw with soft pecks with his lips stopping before her mouth. He looked into her eyes, questioning her.

**With your stomach pushed out**

**With your head tilting back **

**With your mouth partially open**

She rolled her eyes and smiled, cupping the back of his neck and bringing his lips to hers. Their lips moved together as she drew his upper lip between hers, sucking it gently. She felt him run his tongue against her lower lip, begging for entrance. He groaned as she opened her mouth and his tongue was greeted with hers. As their kiss deepened, he tightened his grip around her small frame, pressing her to him. Their lips never parted as they sunk to the sand, her hair cascading around her, and forming her pillow.

The sounds slur and elevate 

**Slowly in volume**

He leant over her, his hand softly stroking her calf, her knee, pushing up the skirt of her dress, gliding gently up her thigh. She moved one hand to his chest, feeling the strength of his body as he moved. His fingers danced lightly over her silken skin, slowly drifting between her knees, dragging painfully slowly higher and higher between her thighs…

Kirsten snapped out of her memory as the warm water suddenly touched her ankles. A sob escaped her lips as she crumpled to the ground. She missed her marriage. She missed her husband. She didn't care that the water was now soaking her skirt, her legs becoming stained with wet and dry sand. Her tears flowed freely as she sobbed, she was glad she was alone for the moment. She shifted her weight, drawing up her knees her to chest as the water crashed against her painted toes. She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging herself.

Her mother's marriage. That's what she was living in. She never thought she'd see the day. She never thought she'd hurt this way. The pain she was feeling within herself was unbearable as the cravings for alcohol deepened. She needed something to comfort her, as obviously her husband was not. He was the air around her, she needed him to survive, and recently, he had been nowhere near her. She wasn't supposed to hurt. He promised her that decades ago. Last year, she had been shattered. She thought he had fixed her. He had put her through rehab and brought her back. He had given her the space and time she needed to heal the wounds she had incurred over the year. This year was supposed to be different, better but recently she found herself crying, hurting, craving. He had changed and this time she was devastated.

**When you wake up with your family**

**Gathered around**

**Remember that our love was true**

**And I will not allow you to destroy yourself**

She took a glance at the pale moon's reflection over the ocean before realizing that she had been crying for over an hour. Goosebumps had formed over her skin as shivers continually ran up and down her spine. She gathered herself and her shoes, dusting herself off briefly. The water would dry eventually and so would the sand. She would shower at the house, wondering at what hour her husband would drag himself home.

She closed her eyes at the feeling of the warm water against her skin. The shower she needed. As she washed the shampoo from her hair she wondered how she had let her relationship grow this strained. The lather ran down her slender body, tracing every curve, the swell of her breasts, the definition of her abdomen to the dark shadow between her legs. Her husband used to know every part of her, every aspect, arch, and bend. The scars and the freckles. He hadn't seen her body in, to her, what seemed like ages.

She rubbed at her skin as she rinsed the soap, feeling the small scar on her left knee from a night in college. Ardor was their muse then. It had been their muse up until recently, the night Rebecca Bloom came back into their lives. It had gone downhill from there. The summer the boys left had been hard on their relationship but they had found a sort of common ground, regardless of the small grudges they bore against one another. They had learned to put the past behind them on their twentieth anniversary. He had sung to her and that night made some of the most passionate love they had ever experienced.

**And I hope that I'm not revealing too **

I hope that I'm not revealing too 

**I hope that I'm not revealing too**

**I hope that I'm not revealing, oh, too much**

**No, too much**

She patted the towel to her skin before wrapping it, modestly around her. She had never found use to enveloping her body in the towel before. He usually ended up taking it off her, moments later. She walked out into their bedroom, past their closet. She chose his clothes often. He had always wanted to look his best for her and who else would know what she liked best than herself?

As she ran a comb through her damp hair, fully clothed, she realized that no matter what she did, it all lead back to the same thing. The same man. Sandy Cohen. He was her world and though for now, it was spiraling out of control, she had faith that he'd fix it. He had to. All he had to do was listen.

**We'd have our own subway car in the middle of the night**

**I'd work the same job**

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she decided to herself, she wasn't going to give up on him. She wasn't going to allow him to destroy himself.

She opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps down the hall. Her hair had dried; she sheets beneath her, wrinkled at her sleep. Her breath caught in her chest as the door opened. Her blue eyes met his as they whispered softly to each other.

"Sandy."

"Kirsten."

**And play the same bars on every weekend**

_**As the graffiti scrolls by**_


End file.
